This invention relates to a cool-air duct for refrigerators which can efficiently direct cool air into a plurality of cool-air discharge openings which communicate with a refrigerating compartment.
As shown in FIG. 1, a conventional refrigerator is constructed by mounting a freezing compartment door 6 and a refrigerating compartment door 7 on a refrigerator body 4 of a thermally insulated structure consisting of a freezing compartment 2 and a refrigerating compartment 3 which are partitioned from each other by an intermediate partition wall 1 therebetween.
A compressor 11 is installed in the machine compartment 11M that is positioned under the refrigerating compartment 3. A condenser and capillary tube (not shown) are mounted in the interior of the body 4 or placed in the machine compartment 11M, while an evaporator 12 is mounted on the rear wall of the freezing compartment 2. These components are connected to each other by refrigerant tubes (not shown) to perform the refrigeration cycle.
A fan 13, for forcing cool air from the evaporator 12 into the freezing compartment 2 and the refrigerating compartment 3, is disposed above the evaporator 12. In order to guide the flow of the cool air, a grill 14 is placed in front of the fan 13 and a cool-air duct 15A is disposed on the rear wall of the refrigerating compartment 3. Here, the numeral 19 indicates a damper for controlling the quantity of cool air introduced into the refrigerating compartment 3, and the numeral 8 indicates shelves for receiving food items.
As a method for supplying cool air to the refrigerating compartment 3, a conventional refrigerator generally adopts a shelf-by-shelf cool-air discharging method. In this method, as shown in FIG. 2, a plurality of cool-air discharge openings 16A, B,C are provided for several areas partitioned by the shelves 8, and are arranged in a vertically spaced direction on the front of the cool-air duct 15A, in order that cool air can be discharged towards the front of each area formed by the plurality of the shelves 8.
However, in the above shelf-by-shelf cool-air discharging method only a small portion of the cool air from the evaporator 12 passes through the upper cool-air discharge opening 16A. Most of the cool air flows down along the cool-air duct 15A and finally discharges into the refrigerating compartment 3 through the lowest cool-air discharge opening 16C. This problem arises because the cool-air discharge openings 16A,B,C are formed perpendicularly to the flow direction of the cool air passing through the cool-air duct 15A. Accordingly, the upper and lower portions of the refrigerating compartment 3 constitute different temperature zones, respectively, so uniform cooling in the refrigerating compartment 3 can not be achieved. As a result, the food items on the upper shelves of the refrigerating compartment 3 can not maintain a proper refrigerating temperature, whereas the food items on the lower shelves are overcooled.
Furthermore, such a conventional refrigerator has demerit in that cool-air circulation in the refrigerating compartment 3 does not go smoothly, so not only does the cool air not reach the corners of the refrigerating compartment 3, but the temperature distribution in every direction of the space is not kept constant. Cool air is discharged only towards the front of the refrigerating compartment 3 due to the poor configuration of the cool-air duct aforementioned.
Even in the case where bulky food items may be near any of the cool-air discharge openings, blocking the cool-air flow, the cool-air circulation still does not improve significantly.
As a consequence, the food items in the refrigerating compartment 3 can not be stored in the most suitable condition.
As an attempt to distribute cool air more evenly throughout the compartment, a three-dimensional cool-air discharging method has recently been developed. As shown in FIG. 3, a refrigerator according to this method has a plurality of cool-air discharge openings 16S on the side walls of the refrigerating compartment 3 as well as cool-air discharge openings 16A, B,C on the rear wall, resulting in the discharge of cool air from the side walls as well as from the rear wall.
However, even in the above refrigerator, cool air is simply discharged in only one direction from each opening, without being dispersed in other directions. Accordingly, such a refrigerator fails to provide uniform cooling by creating portions that are exposed and not exposed to the cool air, depending upon the dimension and arrangement of food items.
Further, because the cool-air duct configuration in the three-dimensional cool-air discharging method is the same as that in the shelf-by-shelf cool-air discharging method, the cool air is not discharged in a sufficient amount through the upper cool-air discharge opening, whereas it is excessively discharged through the lower cool-air discharge opening. Therefore, the food items in the compartment can not be kept fresh at an uniform temperature even by the conventional refrigerator having three-dimensional cool-air discharge openings.
It is accordingly an object of this invention to provide a refrigerator with a cool-air duct that can evenly distribute cool air to the refrigerating compartment through its cool-air discharge openings and maintain all the areas of the refrigerating compartment at an uniform temperature.
Another object of this invention is to provide a refrigerator with a cool-air duct that can discharge cool air from each cool-air discharge opening into the right and left sides of a refrigerating compartment so as to circulate the introduced cool air evenly.